Kogi: The Last Message

[CMD]

Indiana74 wrote:

Charlie, I spent an hour and a half watching that documentary not only loving it but longing for that sense of spiritual connection with mother earth and deep enlightenment these people have. These people who are looked down upon and misunderstood are so highly intelligent that its unbelievable. I'm ready to join the Kogi Who's with me?

  Yep! What saddens me more then anything is that our own Western science simply does not understand. But, consciousness studies are a huge new field of study. It's the future, I am convinced. The relationship of consciousness to the natural world, the very nature of consciousness once fully understood will change everything as far as how we interpret reality. As Josh pointed out, we have forgotten things. The Kogi are not ignorant primitives. The West needs to understand the shamanic world view is not invalid!
Folks like the Kogi know far more then our Western science knows. It's our arrogance, and our belief that history has somehow led to us as the apex of knowledge, that is a grave error on our part. Very arrogant and very mistaken. More and more Westerners, including scientists, are coming to a much needed realization. Studies involving ayahuasca and one of it's' psychoactive ingredients, DMT, are bringing a shamanistic world view into a front and center position within the broad field of consciousness studies. I fully believe we will one day understand we need to come full circle. We need to realize the realms accessed by shamanistic techniques are not imaginary or invalid. We need to realize, despite our technological prowess  as a civilization, that in other areas of real knowledge, we as a civilization have actually regressed a great deal. Mark my word, if we survive at all given the state of the world, the day will come when we realize what we have forgotten is far from ignorant superstition. We will understand some day that it was we who chose to be ignorant, fooled by ourselves into thinking if we don't know it all, then at least only OUR methods can render any progress in an understanding of reality;  our unrecognized-for-what-it-is-arrogance led us to believe only the scientific method leads to true knowledge.
Check this out. "What a Shaman sees in a Mental Hospital". I can pretty much guarantee our Western interpretation of reality cannot wrap it's head around what this shaman says is going on.  It can't be! Yet, if a stable, healthy integration into one's social group is one goal of healing, the shaman's interpretation seems to ensure a better outcome at least then that found in mental wards. This is actually one of the wildest things I've ever read. It just shows you how incredibly diverse interpretations of reality can be!! This is a book excerpt, and the Dagara are an Africa people.

http://www.jbbardot.com/shaman-mental-hospital/

[Kyflintguy]

clambellies wrote:

Very interesting.  I'm going to track down a copy.

  Pm me with your info, if your interested and I'll send it your way.

[Indiana74]

Wow that article," The Shamanic View of Mental Illness" was a fascinating read! I am a nurse and have been in the field 20 years and so I've had my own experiences with mental disorders and people having episodes of psychosis. I totally understand why the western world is treating mental disorders with etiology and path it's because most true "acute" metal illness or episodes of "psychosis" are actually caused by something causing havoc in their bodies such as infection and brain tumors etc. However I do know and have followed cases of unexplained psychotic changes in people that have no known etiology and so this is were you have my attention. I'm Catholic and  believe that a body can become demonically possessed for no other reason than there is a entity that is trying to manifest itself in that person. We believe that our bodies are a shell and we are our spirit only. The Catholic church still believes this and investigates such possessions behind closed doors. So it's not hard for me to imagine that the other "realm", "world", or "dimension" exists and could use our "shells" as a way to communicate to the living here on this Earth. It was amazing to me that Dr. Some looked at these people so sadly because we treat them like we do because they embrace what we call " mental illness" because of what they believe it means. I took care of a woman that according to her history and physical from the 50's at a local state hospital was diagnosed with a mental disorder that they believed was caused by her going thru puberty. There was no known cause other than that and the treatment she received over and over was electric shock therapy as well as other inhumane procedures. She eventually was in a vegetative state and of course the family wanted her to live out the rest of her life in a long term care facility. How terrible is that? I will never look at mental illness the same. Thanks Charlie!